Isabella Morales

Critical Thinking and Writing I

Dr. Tarnoff

11 December 2019

At the Crossroads of Culture and Education

“It is only through the stories we tell ourselves about our past that we can begin to

understand that past” (Robillard 7). As knowledgeable humans, we believe that we have a

refined idea of who we truly are. However, if someone were to ask us to talk about ourselves, we

would be silent and realize, “Wait, I ​don’t​ know myself.” Throughout our lives, we are given the

chance to speak about our lives and relay our experiences to each other every day through

conversation. These instances, though, happen in the blink of an eye and we rarely get the chance

to reflect on the events we have lived through. As students, we aren’t granted the luxury to write

about ourselves often and when we are given those assignments, it’s often to please our teachers

or a board of college administration personnel. We can tell ourselves stories about our past

verbally, but it would not be as solidified compared to if we wrote about ourselves, without

needing to impress another person.

In my own experience of education, personal narrative was a task of rarity assigned by

various teachers. It was even more unlikely that we would be asked to speak about our cultural

narratives. Even if I was given the task to do so, I believe I would not have been able to provide

an introspective reflection due to the lack of cultural diversity in my high school’s curriculum. In

various history classes, I rarely heard the history of my Filipino culture and was only taught to

see through a Eurocentric perspective. While the stories of Caucasian history spanned over
hundreds of pages, the stories of Asian culture, let alone Filipino culture, were summarized down

to two paragraphs, . The books that were assigned for us to read in English classes portrayed

only the voices of white protagonists. Every so often, teachers would assign texts with Asian

main characters like ​The Joy Luck Club​ and ​A Thousand Pieces of Gold,​ but they were often

assigned in portions to different groups or made to read as a winter break assignment. Such

novels were the works that were given the least amount of time and we were never able to fully

engage in the text before quickly moving on to another book from a white perspective. My own

identity was not presented in my education. Because of this, at times I felt disconnected from the

school curriculum. I understood the necessity of seeing from another’s point-of-view, but I also

felt that I was missing a part of myself in the classes I was required to sit through.

In the film, ​Precious Knowledge, ​the students at Tucson High School display similar

emotions as the lack of representation in their education made them less interested in their

courses. However, with the implementation of a Mexican American Studies Program, the

students begin to take hold of their education and even become passionate in the course material.

Similar to the students at Tucson High School, I was aware that this lack of cultural

understanding was hindering my learning abilities, but I didn’t quite know how to voice these

feelings in a clear and efficient manner. I also didn’t know if other Asian students of color felt

similarly about this issue. It wasn’t until a meeting with my school’s Asian affinity group, the

Asian Student Coalition or ASC, that I began to see that my high school’s curriculum needed to

change.

Throughout high school, I participated heavily in ASC. Our meetings would consist of

dialogue surrounding general Asian-American issues and problems with the representation of our

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community within the school. During one particular meeting, we began to speak about what

changes we’d like to see around campus and how ASC could aid in solving those issues. Still

unsure of how to phrase my problem, I raised my hand and spoke about the lack of

representation of Asians and Asian-Americans in my history classes and expressed how I felt:

that my education was somehow being devalued over a majority of students. Though I was

nervous about the reactions of my fellow club members, I was surprised and greatly relieved to

hear that they held similar grievances towards the curriculum. Brainstorming ideas and possible

solutions, we came to a collective agreement; we would write a letter to the high school’s

administrative board stating our issues with the current history and English curriculums and how

they affected the education of Asian students of color.

We spent various meetings constructing this letter and making sure that we were keeping

a level of professionalism while still expressing our feelings effectively to the reader. We

needed to be aware of our word-choice and the different stories we decided to tell. In the essay

by Tony Scott, “Writing Enacts and Creates Identities and Ideologies,” he elaborates on this idea

of using writing as a tool in identity formation and examining structures of power. Scott

explains, “...Writing is deeply involved in struggles over power, the formation of identities, and

the negotiation, perpetuation, and contestation of belief systems.” (Scott 49). ASC chose to

express our feelings through a letter as opposed to other forms of communication because we

were aware of how trusted and idolized the practice of writing was. We hoped that through this

form of expression our experiences and necessity for a broader cultural education would be taken

seriously by the administrative board. After several drafts, we finally sent the letter to the

higher-ups and awaited a response from them, only to be harshly faced with a rejection of our

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requests. Though saddened and exhausted from our high school leaders’ harsh answers, we

continued to push for representation and garnered more stories from the student body. We would

not back down until we were met with a compromise or a promise for change from the

administrative board. Ultimately, we were granted one of the proposes from our letter; the

readings for English classes were to include more protagonists of color and stories from different

Asian cultures. Although this proposition wasn’t implemented during my time in high school, I

was thrilled to hear that at least ​some​ change would come from our determination for more Asian

representation. It would mean a greater intersection of culture and education, specifically from

an Asian perspective, and I could not have been happier with this outcome.

Knowing about one’s culture and cultural identity is an aspect of individual storytelling

and identity. How can we tell ourselves stories about our own past without knowing the stories

of our own people? In understanding the history of our cultures, we gain another level of

reflection upon our own narratives. We can understand why we are treated in a certain way, why

we experience aggressive actions from a stranger, and how our positionality affects our everyday

lives. Through learning about our cultural history in the classroom and writing about it, we

become more passionate in our research and in continuing our education for the sake of personal

discovery and growth. Kevin Roozen touches upon this concept in the essay, “Writing is Linked

to Identity,” proposing, “The act of writing, then is not so much about using a particular set of

skills as it is about becoming a particular kind of person.” (Roozen 51). Similarly, the act of

learning, especially in academia, should not center around learning only Eurocentric and

American history because it is perceived to be “more significant”; it should heavily include the

voices of POC and their histories as well. When we learn about ourselves in our textbooks in a

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positive and informative light, we value education more and see that our culture and identity

matters.

Personal narrative works as a means of reflection for students to truly look at their

positionality and aspects of identity in order to make sense of the world. However, true personal

narrative and an effective education cannot be achieved without knowledge of one’s cultural

history. Realizing that there was something wrong with my high school’s curriculum in terms of

Asian representation, I was able to examine how important culture is when it comes to my

engagement with education and how to use the power of words to make a change. When culture

is separated from education, or when a student feels they are not being properly represented in

their classes, it strips learning of its true curious and transformative qualities. This idea is echoed

in Paolo Freire’s text, “The Banking Concept of Education,” in which he explains, “The

outstanding characteristic of [the] narrative education, then, is the sonority of words, not their

transformative power” (Freire 216). As I continue my education at Santa Clara, I hope to

emphasize the importance of intersecting culture and identity and how learning one’s

positionality in the world is activism. I believe these values are especially prominent in the

Ethnic Studies Department, a sector that has been criticized and illegitimated for decades. In

applying the same introspection I did in high school, I desire to see how representation of POC

can be increased in the SCU community and how we can work towards supporting the ethnic

studies instead of constantly pushing against it. We must work to keep the classes which

encourage cultural education and activism for they are what allow students to truly reflect upon

their identity.

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 Works Cited

Freire, Paulo. “The Banking Concept of Education.” ​Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers.​

10th ed., edited by David Bartholomae, January 2014, 216-227. Accessed 17 September

2019.

Robillard, Amy. ​College English,​ “It’s Time for Class: Toward a More Complex Pedagogy of

Narrative”. National Council of Teachers of English, September 2003. 74-92. Accessed

16 November 2019.

Roozen, Kevin. “Writing is Linked to Identity.” ​Naming What We Know, e​ dited by Linda

Adler-Kassner, University Press of Colorado, June 2015, 50-52. Accessed 13 November

19.

Scott, Tony. “Writing Enacts and Creates Identities and Ideologies.” ​Naming What We Know,

edited by Linda Adler-Kassner, University Press of Colorado, June 2015, 48-50.

Accessed 13 November 2019.

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